Maybe it'd help if all violinists came with more fats for extra padding around the collar bone and jaw bone. I did violin practice for nearly 2 hours today and my goodness, I couldn't even clench my teeth properly because my jaws were aching. I think I gripped the violin to hard with my neck. My collar bone is going to get permanent skin damage just like the casualty spot near my jaw.

I'm the first to play on Thursday. I'll have to reach crescent by 7.50am, which means I have to wake up at 4.30am to practice. Poor neighbours, I really didn't mean to give them such a terrible nightmare again. And therefore, I have to sleep at 8.30pm tomorrow. I hope I don't get a jet lag. I'm allowed to miss school the whole day, but I'll decide later if I want to go back.

Singapore's population is hitting 5 million. No wonder it's getting so crowded these days. When will the government finally realise that there really isn't much space left to squeeze in another million or two? It's like living in a beehive. So many people stuffed onto a tiny island, and literally stacked on top of each other.

The danger of links... sigh.

Yesterday and today have been physically and mentally exhausting.

Firstly, I've been erm.. extorted for some ____ information by Vivienne (the pro-est), Jy, Chan and Nichola. Unfortunately, I passed music. What's worse, with 10 marks above the mark we dealed on. Of all days, there were so many "free" periods yesterday and today, so I could only be spared from interrogation when a teacher started teaching. On the bright side, something went wrong with my brain and I cooperated with them today. That means it'll be over (hopefully).

Next, music. It's not my O level practical - it's Ruri's. Therefore, I don't want to end up messing her's up. I think we're still slightly shaken from yesterday, and that made today a depressing day. Today's was probably the saddest practice. I remember after music, Ruri asked Ms P if all our problems could be solved in 6 days. Sadly, I think not. What you can't do in 6 months, you can't do in 6 days. Then how? Apart from feeling hopeless, we're sitting down and disecting the piece together, trying to interpret the music and firguring out how to make it more musical. (Ruri, if you see this, please, don't lose hope yet and cheer up. It's just 6 more days...)

If you're bored, listen to this, and go on to the second piece only if extremely bored.

The Dare to Care Project has been impactful, but it has been bullied by erm.. some people.

Dare you care?
1. Dare I care
2. I dare care
3. I dare to care
4. I dare not care
5. I don't care!

Yea. Due to demand from Ebot.

Typing of caring, 4E5 is really caring. I wish I could write this example for many classmates' testimonials. Today, we had PE and due to popular demand, we played Captain's Ball. PE is almost always fun. For the first game, I was alive and kicking (or jumping). During the second game, my head started feeling weird and I was quite lost throughout the match. By the end of it, I couldn't see clearly and the gravitational forces acting on my head towards the ground felt stronger. We had to do cooling-down exercises and halfway, I couldn't stand it anymore. After that, I can't really recall what happened. Someone led me to Ms K and I think Elizabeth had to stand behind me in case I tipped backwards. A few people led me back to class and then I gained more consciousness. Then more classmates asked if I was ok, whether I was feeling better. And that's why 4E5 is a caring class. Of course, there are many more examples, but this would be the latest one.

On Monday night, after the terrible experience with the dead frog, I actually dreamed that I dreamed of a frog. Somehow, it turned into a nightmare inside the dream and I dreamed that Jensen and Jerome were trying to get me to wake up from that dream. Eventually, I forced myself to get out of the dream that I dreamed, and I automatically got out of the overall nightmare. Now that was a harrowing experience. I bet my uncle is just going to start laughing if I tell him.

Ahhhhhh. Firstly, I forgot to bring yeye's birthday card with me today. We celebrated yesterday and I told him, to be more exact, I'd pass it to him today. It's probably because I stayed up till 2am. I woke up, packed the card nicely on my desk and just left it there. Now it means I can only pass it to him on Thursday when my grandparents drive their weekly homecooked dinner special to my house.

Secondly, I don't like frogs. I mean eating them. Last night during dinner, they ordered some frog leg dish and everyone tried to trick me by saying it was chicken. But then mom accidentally said, "it's just like chicken!" and that blew up their whole plan. My uncle vowed to make me try some herbal frog thing. Well, at least I was safe for a while.

However, I didn't manage to escape from frogs today. We (excluding Jean this time) went to D'Kranji Farm Resort at Lim Chu Kang for the Andrew Fellowship (adults, but inclusive of their kids) outing. Nai nai and yeye also went, maybe because they wanted to have fun too. We went on the packaged tour that took us to the Aeroponics farm and the frog farm, as well as educational activites around the resort. I got to see the Green and Blue Revolution in action, which helped me understand the relevance of Food Geography.

The Jurong Frog Farm is where I touched a frog for the first time last year during sec 3 camp. I remember my group had to pass a slimy frog a whole round and it was quite an interesting obstacle. I touched a frog again today. Anyway, back to the point, we were in a room that sold frog related products. My uncle suddenly decided to buy some "Snow Jelly Herbal Soup". He went out and started trying it. Soon after, Jensen came to me and started dragging me out and saying that my uncle wanted me to try it. I eventually met face to face with the dead frog.

My uncle scooped up some jelly-like substance with his spoon and passed it to me. "Cheng teng!" I tried to protest but it didn't look anything like the frog I usually saw. I wasn't left with much of a choice, so I made a short, improvised parting speech and emptied the spoon into my unsuspecting mouth. I swirled it around my mouth a bit and then swallowed it. Something was telling me it must have been a frog, but it tasted weirdly unfrog-like. After my uncle was sure I swallowed everything, he revealed that it was actually frog fallopian tubes. Ew ew ew. I suddenly recalled some bits of what I learnt in sec 2 bio. Ahhh. My uncle and Jensen were just laughing at my froggy encounter.

It's been an interesting long weekend. Sadly, there's school again tomorrow. I appreciate school, but I'm not looking forward to getting back papers and the fact the O levels are getting closer.

I’m giving myself a short holiday so my brain cells can recuperate (now that was just an excuse). It’s raining so heavily. Whatever that’s pouring down is definitely a polluted mixture of haze particles and maybe dilute sulfuric acid.

A Math was quite good. In fact, all the math papers were good. Thankfully, I didn’t waste time studying for them. After math, while almost everyone else was celebrating, a group of music people trooped down to Macs. No, not to celebrate – to study. Sadly, the speakers were blasting loud pop music. Our poor eardrums had to contend with that, plus ipods practically screaming the Symphony 104 at our trembling eardrums.

I’m either going to not pass music, or I’ll fail it. I dedicated at least 15 hours the past 2 weeks (not including music history) studying Haydn’s life and music – everything except his early years. I was stunned at the essay question and only managed to jot down a few miserable points. And unprepared listening was… sigh. I also didn’t know the amount of time I had left. So I spent a good 10 minutes analysing 4 marks worth of one of the symphony questions. For MYE, I wasn’t in a right state of mind, so I took the exam with confident carelessness. This time, I was fully conscious and therefore, I will be mentally prepared.

I’m as deaf as before, which might be good. At least my ears didn’t get worse. And since it’s permanent damage, no one is expecting a revival. Consultation fees decrease with the number of visits to the specialist. When I compared the 2 receipts, this visit was $25 less. Octoscopy and audiogram remain the same. If not for being under Shenton insurance thing, the medical bill might have cost a bomb. Then again, considering the amount of hard work the doc had to put in to earn his degrees, he deserves it.

The doc made a good point today. When you’re performing (could be a musical performance), try not to be stressed. Stress is self-generated. Think about it, when you’re watching someone trembling on stage and fumbling with whatever he’s trying to do (his fingering or bowing), you feel stressed for the person, right? But if the person under the spotlight does not appear nervous and enjoys what he does, you start to enjoy the whole performance too. Therefore, when you’re a performer, you’re the root of all stress. In a very SS way, that’s the problem that needs to be solved.

The paragraph on top was in response to my answer when he asked if I wanted a musical career. I said no, because I had to be very good to make it out there. That, which I obviously lack. It would mean I must have spent at least 70% of my childhood in a prestigious music school, and won some violin competitions. So I’ll stick to being an engine. Maybe I’ll see Ariela in NUS engineering faculty 3 years later. Music is just there to err… make both sides of my brain a little more balanced.

Mom was talking about holiday plans and asking Jean whether she would be free to go out in December. (Un)fortunately, Jean's NEmation team got into the top 10 again and her December holiday is officially gone. She'll be off to Europe immediately after her Chinese O Level for Sabatical, which leaves 5 days of her holiday free.

Mom: That leaves lynn, mom and I for our holiday...

Jean and I: Huh why you and you at the same time?!

Mom: Oh err.. Haha.. Trinity! (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit)

This reminded me of Ai. (Ai, me and myself)

Recently, there have beem a lot of phone calls with advertisements. I can always tell when they are advertisments because the callers can never pronounce dad's name correctly. But for courtesy's sake and unfortunately leading to a sense of (false) hope for the caller, I still pass the phone to the relevant person. Due to the increase in such calls, mom suddenly came up with a good strategy to maximise the caller's experience. Her plan:

Unknown caller: Hi may I speak to ______ ? Oh, we are from _______ asking you blah blah blah...

A Chan (let's say, mom): Do you know about the 4 spiritual laws?

And from there, you can start telling the poor person on the other end of the line about

1. God LOVES you and offers a wonderful PLAN for your life.
2. Man is SINFUL and SEPARATED from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God's love and plan for his life.
3. Jesus Christ is God's ONLY provision for man's sin. Through Him you can know and experience God's love and plan for your life.
4. We must individually RECEIVE Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God's love and plan for our lives.

Ear check on Friday, which means I can't celebrate after music exam. The scary thing is, yesterday, I experienced temporary deafness twice. It was surprisingly frequent compared to the usual once-a-month deafness. Once was while waiting for the Chem paper to start, and the other was while I was walking in school. It seems like a bad sign to me.

The feeling of temporary deafness: the sound from my surroundings encounters a sudden decrescendo and there's a very loud high-pitched sound in my ear. It goes off after a minute, but the experience is stilll terrifing because you never know if that's the end of your hearing.

This is actually Friday but it overshot the midnight mark

I woke up at 6.15am, and I slept for less than 4 hours this morning. I got up early to do violin practice because I didn't want to end up suffering at night. I'm still wondering how I got the motivation to climb out of my bed and dig up my violin. I closed all the windows and the door. I was just short of sound proof walls for a concert hall experience. Imagine the heat. Violin practice should just become a sport. If I practice too hard, I get a muscle ache around the upper arm where people usually have to lift weights to get the effect.

After the morning exercise, I immediately took a shower. Jean slept through the whole live concert. My neighbours who had just woken up must have thought it was just a bad dream.

Music in the morning. I was unusually alert and rather responsive. This is the wonder of violin practice at the crack of dawn. I spent the rest of the day playing with Jensen and Jerome, enjoying the simplistic side of life as I pretended to get shot by a lego gun (and die), drew weird cars and tried to revise.

Jensen is getting nerdy and lamer by the day. Too much GEP in his head (no, jk. I have no grudges against smart people). Jerome accidentally dropped a strand of noodle on his chair. While picking it up...

Jerome: I'm going pick up this noodle!

Jensen: And then drop it onto the floor, right? Haha... Drop it onto the floor, right? Geddit? Flouride!

Mom and dad came home a while ago. They brought back big load of food. Yea, the weather's really warm, but I don't think we'll be facing a famine anytime soon.

They recounted getting caught for speeding in Malaysia. A policeman stopped them, but instead of issuing the speeding ticket, he insisted on them paying him 50 ringghit and he would let them off. Mom and dad didn't have much of a choice, and they also didn't know where to pay the summon, so they accepted the bribery. I was quite stunned when I knew about it. Morally, it's wrong. But looking at their case, I'm not sure if it would be right or wrong. Mom and dad didn't mind the speeding ticket, but after all, the policeman insisted on the bribery.

Corruption is really a problem in developing countries. The fact is that it's inevitable, yet it's an important factor in determining a country's stability. That policeman was already probably getting a meager salary from his job. That 50 ringghit would probably ease his financial burden for a few days, and so he found it more worthwhile than dutifully reporting the crime and not pocketing the summon. I can look at it from a few perspectives.

1. By accepting the bribery, mom and dad might have just helped a policeman who may have really needed the extra 50 ringghit. In this point of view, it's about compassion, sympathy and somewhat a charitable act.

2. By accepting the bribery, mom and dad have just allowed more corruption to destroy the legal system. It's not "right", according to the law. Though they faced a consequence (having to pay) for their "crime", it wasn't really addressed to the right party. In that way, it may have been like stealing money to give to the poor.

I'm still not sure about which stand I'm taking. In ethics, there's something called "Duty Ethics", where the moral standard is set according to what the law says, no room for special cases. I often end up taking that stand. It may be partly due to my strong taste for structure and discipline.

the musical relics

After revising music the past few days, I find myself appreciating ethnic music a lot more. Try listening to this if you are on the verge of dying from boredom. It's well-played, with very good interpretation. I've never been so fascinated with this sort of music. And no, I am not insane, yet.

I learnt that every musical style has it's own uniqueness. Ethnic music no longer seems like music our ancestors anyhow whacked out. Each style has it's own special technique and characteristics. After listening to more than 70 youtube videos on ethnic music for 3 days, you'll get what I mean. I didn't do it intentionally. I just got hooked on to it for hours.

Home alone - latest episode.

I'm home alone again. Mom and dad are out on their annual mooncake expedition in Malaysia. They drove off this morning and they'll be extending their adventure to 2D1N in Port Dickson. NEmation has robbed Jean of whatever holiday she originally intended. I can't wait for this week to be over, for prelims to be over, and for O levels to be over. I can't imagine what 2 weeks of Study leave will be like. I might just go crazy studying.

Tuesday was a bad day, especially after swimming. I still had phlegm in my throat, so I had to breathe slowly yet deeply to prevent choking myself with phlegm and dying in the swimming pool. Dad, for once in a long time, managed to finish his laps faster than me. Anyway, after spending a long time lazing around at the pool side, we finally went up. Then my flu came back at full force. Tuesday night was terrible. My nose was running yet blocked (I don't know how else to describe it) and sneezing was making things worse. When I tried blowing my nose, I think something in my nervous system wasn't functioning properly. My eyes started tearing for no reason. After a good night's sleep, I was back to normal.

Ms Kwok helped me fix up Rondo again during violin lesson on Wednesday. I think I've sorted out most of the details in techniques already. It's just about whether I can apply them 100% in one shot, ie. perfect. I find caprices more interesting than studies, because I can see structure in the way the techniques are being introduced. Every note has its significance in building up a violinist's technique. Then mom, dad and I went to visit my latest cousin who is about a month old. Ah, the age gap. 4 out of 5 cousins have at least a 12 year age gap from me. The closest is half a decade. Now I feel so old.

Mom tried to play safe by buying frozen carbonara pastas for me to microwave and cook for lunch. I really don't agree that high tech food is idiot proof. Unless, of course, my intelligence transcends the extremes of idiotness. I looked at the instructions at the back of the box and it only gave me the timings of 3 types of microwave oven power ratings. It didn't help because I didn't know mine. My kitchen helpline was all the way at NYP. I called Jean and she suggested I check the model of the oven so she could research on the power rating. Unfortunately, after bending down and trying to locate the model number, I quickly got up to take a stretch when *BANG*. Yes, you guessed it right. I banged my head against a low-lying cupboard.

After that unfortunate event, I decided to just microwave the pasta in 2-minute intervals. So I loaded the pasta into the operating theatre and stood (patiently) outside. The seconds passed by very slowly and I was haunted by thought of my lunch exploding. After every few seconds, I would stop the microwaving just to check on the precious pasta. By the time I officially pronounced it "cooked", an hour had passed. So much for high tech pasta that only needed 4 minutes for a microwave oven with the lowest power rating.

Thankfully, nainai and yeye delivered dinner for Jean and I while on the way to church for prayer meeting just now. Without further ado, I shall proceed with dinner. Sigh... Have the laundry to settle later.

Dad, mom and I went to Nanyang Poly to pick Jean up after her NEmation thing (yea, again). We arrived early and had already walked around and entertained ourselves with dessert from the food court. We strolled around the giant fish pond outside while our stomachs worked on the cheng teng. There were protruding platforms on the pond which we made use of to cross over to the other side. While crossing, dad spotted a fish in distress. The water there was shallow because of rocks on the bottom, and the fish was half submerged and stuck there in the narrow canal. Actually, it could have gotten itself out by just making a U turn and navigating its way through the canals between the platforms. However, we over-estimated its intelligence.

Dad came to the rescue. He plucked off a long leaf from a plant standing nearby. He then used the leaf to try to push the fish and make it turn around. I think the fish was just enjoying itself being tickled by the leaf. The pond area was so clean that we couldn't even find a twig lying around. Determined to save the fish, I uprooted a stalk and handed the upgraded tool to dad. After about 5 minutes of coaxing the fish and getting rejected countless times, the fish finally gave in and dad steered it all the way to the safer waters. People walking past must have thought we were fishing in their school pond. Dad thought he had just ruined the fish's game of hide and seek with his friends.

We went to the airport for dinner after that. Mom started recounting the days of when she worked with CAAS. On Saturdays, dad would take me to Changi beach where I'd start filling my yellow bucket with sand. Then we'd head over to pick mom up. Anyway, back to the point. Our main objective was to send liyu and his family off to England. He's going to complete his Phd in theology there. After completing the first part of dinner at Swensens, we got a call from nai nai that he would be boarding soon. So we quickly finished up and left. That was part 1, to be continued later.

There were quite a lot of people gathered at the check in hall, mostly liyu and yanghong's students from Campus Crusade and people from our church. Barnabas and Jerome were still fighting together the whole time like how 4 and 5 year old boys play. When it was time to send them off, Jerome and Barnabas hugged each other. Within seconds, I think one party hugged the other too tightly and both of them landed on the ground where they continued fighting. Yu xin, Jethro, Jean and I just stood there and laughed, reminiscing the times when we used to fight and chase each other around the church.

They'll be there for 3 years. It reminded me of my experience 11 years ago. My family got the send-off as we boarded the plane to US. Today, I had the chance to experience it from a different perspective.

After sending them off, we stayed around to talk a bit, then mom, dad, jean and I went off to Swensens for part 2 of our dinner - dessert. We felt rather weird walking back and meeting the same staff. They must have thought we either liked their food too much or had the habit of eating in installments.

It's 1 am and I'm tired after a long day.

Small and big

Background information: Jean was performing at IMM today, Strings concert. Sadly, her supporters were out for lunch together. After lunch, yeye gave me a lift to church since he had to go for elders' meeting anyway. Dad also had to go, but he and mom went to pick Jean up first. The rest of the text relates to what happened on the long yet meaningful journey.

It started off with a simple question from me. I asked yeye what the church was going to do about hiring a full time music pastor since we were currently short of one. It then led to me asking him a carload of questions about issues that had been going through my mind recently.

I've been growing up in this church for 16 years, and I've not been exposed to any other church except one in US for 3 years, but it was about the same. In a Chinese church which isn't even the Chinese assembly of another "big" church, an average of slightly over 200 people is the norm for services. And unlike large churches, there's only enough people for one service a week. If the offering amount (something I've always liked to analyse every Sunday) reaches $4000 in total, it's highly rare and something wonderful must have happened to a pocket. On a closer level, I've envied other youth groups before. Compared to other English assembly youth fellowships who have a long list of cell groups, 3 is the number in my fellowship (15-19 years old). I'm talking about each group = 6 people. For worship, thankfully, we have the luxury of pianists. Violins and guitar (or band) are comparatively rarely used. There are other churches out there which have a band at their service, or even better, an orchestra.

I know whatever I've been stating up there is rather materialistic, and it isn't of crucial importance to my faith. But after being in this environment for some time, I just got curious as I began to open my eyes to the world outside, and started to notice various problems my church faces.

After asking yeye about the potential music pastor, we talked about incomes of some people who worked in the church. Going by the offering amount collected each week, I knew that they couldn't have been paid much. And trust me, it's not much. Considering they have gotten their masters or other degrees in theology, anyone would have expected them to earn a good sum like most parents I know do. But no. Yeye had to remind me that though it wasn't much, they were doing it for God. It was a timely reminder during bible study today - invest in heaven's stock market.

I remember I asked him bluntly if our church was rich. I was hoping that maybe it was, the way I saw it when I was younger and still living in my well. But of course, facts are facts. Suddenly, I didn't want a music pastor anymore. Though it would benefit the choir and other music ministries, it went more to a "better quality of life". I wanted the church to save money and not fret over the building fund. Maybe I could help do the music side next time, but I wouldn't want to be paid.

I asked yeye about people leaving the church, and new people coming in over the years. Some people left due to various reasons, and new people entered, not just non-believers. I thought it was very un-Christian for people to leave their church and serve in our church because of certain disagreements over issues there. After all, I had been instilled with the "don't bother church hopping if you face problems in you own church, because problems exist everywhere" way of thought for as long as I can remember. I later learnt that we had to respect their decisions and accept them as part of our church, the same goes to those who decided to leave. It isn't for us to judge them.

We also talked about the future of our church. I was concerned about the ageing population we had. People my age would rather be in a church with a large youth group, advanced facilities and maybe some fame. I've envied such churches before. I was also slightly frustrated that I could see numerous problems with a small church like ours, but not with others. But yeye managed to give me a bigger picture. Every developed country is starting to age, and Singapore is one of them. There's no doubt it will hit churches. The only difference is the magnitude of the impact. He also reminded me that no church is perfect. There will always be problems when there are humans. For example, disagreements over certain ideas and beliefs. There have been problems since 20 A.D. (Paul's time), hence the letters we see in the bible, and there still are today. It's not about the problems, but more about how the church tackles them and continues growing.

Things that affect one's faith are more crucial than the issues I've been thinking about. I know the church will never be some perfect place I once thought it was, but it won't change where I'll head to every Sunday morning. It's where my roots are. Though I'm less blind to the imperfections of my church, I'll still stay on to face the challenges. Where there are challenges, there are also successes. Like for a small community church, you get to reach out to people living in 1-room flats nearby, and people who converse in dialect and Chinese.

While on the ageing population bit, we digressed to yeye's age and people living longer lives. It's a little out of point in this topic, but anyway. He's considered still "young", but he used "if I live to 90, you can...", which scared me a bit. I must write the biographies of my grandparents after O levels so that I can learn more from their experiences.

The journey to church ended here.

Writing a testimonial can be hard, especially when you're forced to brag about yourself. Evangeline thought of the best one:

Quality: humble
Example: I feel extremely uncomfortable writing this

I learnt an important lesson today - never open your windows too wide during the 7th month ghost festival. This is especially applicable if you're living near a giant tourist attraction (I'm serious - Bright Hill Temple is a must-go ethnic site) like me. I woke up this morning and discovered some grey flaky stuff sitting on my window latch. After a closer examination, I realised it was ash. When I came home, mom reported that there were traces of ash on my bed, the PVC platform/sofa (or whatever it's called), my cushions, the stuffed toys sitting around... practically everywhere. So she kindly helped me clear that up while I was in school. When I switched on my fan, I got a shock when some ash on the floor suddenly came to life. I immediately headed for the mopping thing. Mom spotted me and I ended up doing commmunity service.

The past few days passed rather quickly. My days consisted of 3 main activities - revision, violin practice and slacking away at the computer. I spent 90% of revision time working on SS and Geog. It's a pity they only combine to form 1 subject. But I don't have a choice since I only have 1 human subject. I tried to revise A Math last night. I flipped to a random question and spent an hour doing it, but no work done since I didn't manage to solve it. To prevent humiliating my brain cells further, I decided to call it a day.

I've been sitting for exams in rather extreme climatic conditions. Today's papers were held in the classroom. No matter where I sit, I'm always situated in the class's tropical climate zone. For exams, I migrated to somewhere around the Sahara region. I was practically a semi-solid lump melting away in the heat. The fan that was literally squating on the floor didn't come to any good use by trying to blow my feet off. On the other end of the thermometer, Wednesday was spent in the walk-in fridge. Since I was seated in the chiller section, where the air from the 2 rows of air con converge and emerge stronger, I was a very well-preserved piece of meat. After the chilling experience of being thawed and frozen repeatedly, I finally decided to invest in a school jacket.

My phone has been slipping into comas more often. There's an interesting red light at the back of the phone. Throughout my phone's entire (short) history, it has only performed one function - it lights up when my phone loses consciousness. Sony Erricson really has a good sense of humour.

I was doing my usual scan through of CNN when I came upon this article, Musicians play for peace to mark WWII anniversary. I wouldn't blame you if you don't bother reading it because I usually don't open links on other blogs as well. Unless, of course, on rare occassions, whatever it is interests me.

In short, selcted top notch players from world-acclaimed orchestras are coming together to give a performance which will spread the message of peace. The conductor is the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. What makes this orchestra so special is the unique diversity and internationalism of the musicians. One part states:

"We've got a young Brazilian violinist called Pablo de Leon who is sitting alongside someone such as Elena Baskina from Novosibirsk in Siberia. And then you have someone like Nabih Bulos who plays with Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra but originally comes from Amman in Jordan.

"They really can't speak to each other but they can share the experience of playing together. Music can often do what the spoken word can't."

The last sentence just sums it up.